Think Candy Land with an Amazon rain forest theme, and you've got a pretty good picture of Journey on the Amazon. Colorful, fun, simple, and my son's favorite new game are other ways to describe this board game for children age 4 and older.

Besides being a regular board game, this Playzzle(TM) is part puzzle, too. Twelve large puzzle pieces must first be put together to reveal the sturdy playing board. I'm sure it's hard to imagine if you've never seen a Playzzle(TM) before, but rest assured, building the puzzle is part of the fun and doesn't take away from the integrity of the board at all.

Players draw cards and move their playing pieces to the first matching space along a winding path through the Amazon rain forest. Occasional bumps or surprises in the path will send you forward or backward along the trail. The first person to travel the entire path through the forest is the winner. Since players aren't required to read in order to play the game, younger children can play right alongside their much older family members and have just as much chance of winning as anyone else in the game.

Your children will learn bits and pieces about Amazon animals as they learn the names of anacondas, anteaters, jaguars, caimans, and the like. The instruction booklet even supplies some background information about each of the animals highlighted in the game. The game cards and directions are bilingual, too, each having English and Spanish printed on them.

This game happily sits on our preschool game shelf and anxiously awaits the next time my little guy reaches for it, which will be sooner than later!

Product review by Cindy West, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, August 2010